Is your friend mean and toxic?
By Micah Kao
To know whether or not you have a toxic or mean friend, you may want to look out for the red flags. Sometimes, red flags show-up after you‘ve become friends.
When your opinion of someone is positive, these flags may be overlooked. You may start to say to yourself: “It’s fine, he/she won’t want to be mean or try to hurt me. Right?”
Sometimes, when you view someone as a good person and they act meanly towards you, you try to walk away from the fact that they are being a mean person.
The term manipulation gets thrown around a lot in situations like these. People think they can easily spot manipulation if it happens to themselves. However, it's not as easy as you think.
Simon and Marie are dating. Marie wants to go out and play with her friends. But Simon forces Marie to stay with him — Simon’s a Manipulator!
That is a really common manipulative situation, but manipulation is not always as clear as that.
Manipulation works by building up over time, like bricks making a building, and works on your emotions.
For example, Simon might start keeping Marie at home by nitpicking things about her friends: “I don't like how Brandon likes to smoke a lot; don’t you think it's irresponsible and bad for his and your health?” After hearing this, Marie might start to think her friends are not so great and start believing what Simon says. A few months of this go by and Marie isn't hanging out with her friends anymore; Simon has successfully isolated her in their home, meaning he has complete control over her thoughts and emotions.
You may still think it’s really easy to spot manipulations or red flags if it was happening to you.
But it’s also important to keep in mind that everything is more humanized than you think.
Your mind will think of any excuse to rationalize different behavior from people you trust or think highly of, which applies to your relationship with your friends.
It can be difficult, but you need to know how people should treat you, respect yourself, and not let other people maneuver you into bad situations.
Emotionally abusive and manipulative relationships are common. It’s tricky and hard because they mess around your head and make you feel stuck, sad, and powerless.
Emotional Blackmail is another way to control and manipulate someone using guilt, fear, and obligation against them. Is someone passive-aggressive? Overly controlling? Do they say things like “do this or I’ll hurt you” or “do this or I’ll hurt myself”? If someone said to you “I’m pathetic and you don’t deserve me” you instinctively comfort them to help them feel better because you want to provide him or her with what they need. You care about them and don’t want them to hurt themselves or feel this way.
The truth is you are NOT personally responsible for other people’s happiness. Even if they have really bad self-esteem, you are still NOT responsible for their happiness, and even if they are really sad and depressed you are NOT responsible for their happiness.
Responsibility shouldn’t be given or assigned to you. Even if you don’t want to step back, most people aren’t normally equipped to fully help people with severe mental health issues, so it’s best to see a professional who has been trained to handle these things. A mental illness doesn’t give you the excuse to be a bad friend. It means they need to work with themselves, and it’s okay if you don’t want to be a part of it.
You’ve got things going on too. Imagine yourself as your island and you try your best to maintain whatever’s there. If there’s anything that just feels like pollution — maybe it started good and then went bad — you can’t drop everything to help another person’s island and leave no one to take care of your own. It’s your responsibility to maintain your own island too. Good communication between others is the best way to know if you are having a good relationship with others: when you are communicating with others, you can solve the problem that you are facing. However, if they say something like “how was supposed to know I was just trying to help,” or try shifting blame, gaslighting and guilt-tripping, let them know how they’re affecting you and set boundaries. Make sure you both have your own support systems, so you don’t need to only rely on each other. However, if things don’t change, then you might need to reconsider your relationship. Look at your own behaviors as well — do you feel like you also need to change or justify your actions a lot? People can blame themselves for needing to rationalise things that were not right in the first place, but don’t forget that you could be doing things wrong too. Self-reflect: “ Am I being a butthole?'' “Why am I doing this? Out of spite? Anger? Jealousy?” It’s really hard to admit your faults but you need to be 100% true to yourself if you want to have a good relationship.
Often, manipulative people don’t realize that they’re being manipulative. No one just wakes up and says “hehem I’m going to be super manipulative today!” Think about your contributions to your relationship with other people and how they affect things. It’s ok to admit you’ve done something wrong but it’s more messed up to turn a blind eye and keep being a mean jerk. It takes a lot to break off any sort of relationship because it can feel like that you have been defeated or you’ve given up on something important, but sometimes it may be the best and healthiest solution for everyone involved. Two people can be great but be incompatible. If you feel like leaving them is a dangerous thing for you, then it could be a strong reason to break up or end the relationship. No one should need you and force you to stay, they should want to have you. If you feel like you’re not strong enough to break something up, a good solution is to build up a lot of confidence, a good support system, journal your thoughts, treat yourself as a friend, and don’t feel selfish to want what’s best for yourself. When you break up with someone, remember how things didn’t work out for you and them, say it inside of your head. A lot of people want to rekindle relationships where the initial problem hasn’t been resolved or fixed yet. People need time to change their ways, and you don’t owe someone a second chance when they haven’t put any effort or work into fixing the problem. You also can’t force someone to get help or seek advice from someone else.
If you are unsure about a relationship, consider the following questions:
Is the friend always blaming or yelling at you?
Is the friend always complaining that you are doing something wrong even when you're not?
Is the Friend making you feel worse than before you spent time with them?
Are they toxic or mean to you?
Do you feel that they are mad at you for a lot of non-serious things?
Is this person only friends with you for personal benefit?
Does this person like to use you to hide the fact that they did something wrong?
Have they threatened you in any way?
Do you feel like you can’t make a single decision without them?
Do they ask for a lot of favors or money and don’t give the money back or don’t do anything in return?
If it’s a yes for more than one of these, you might want to reconsider your relationship with your friend. Don’t tolerate the pollution, because you’re the one who has to deal with it. You deserve clear fresh air and a good relationship.